A Magical Weekend!

This last weekend was one of the nicest weekends I can remember in a very long time!
I have been inspired by so many people and events that I likely cannot count them all, but I will try to chronicle some of it, anyway.

Before I get into that, I have to give praise and thanks to God for bringing my father-in-law, Bill, safely through surgery Friday. It was touch and go a couple of times, but he now has a pacemaker successfully installed. We were told that he flat-lined once on the table. Now that is not pleasant to hear or think about, but the doctor thinks that all the problems are resolved and that he will have no further problems with this.

It is surely emotional to have your son graduating on the same day your father-in-law is in surgery one thousand miles away. Fortunately, the day ended happily all the way around.

The patient readers of my blog have heard my tales of this school year, with all of its ups and downs. Sometimes it seemed like it was mostly downs. Some years are just better than others, it seems, and we did not have a particularly enjoyable school year for a lot of reasons, but we are thankful that there were some great moments that came out of the time near the end of the semester.

Friday night was the most wonderful night a kid could have asked for in a high school graduation ceremony. There were scads of people who came up to Daniel and told him that they came just to see HIM graduate. Relatives that we did not know would get there were able to come. Old friends came from town and from M'boro to see him graduate. We had our own little cheering section! There was barely room for my parents and my brother to fit into the "Daniel" section when they arrived, but they scrunched in, and we all had a good view of the ceremony. The place was packed, and the ceremony was sweet and personal. I have been to public school graduations where you sat for 2 hours while the names were called for the diplomas. I was SO thankful that we did not have to go through anything like that. My nerves would not have made it that long!

In our school, they also honor the top students of grades 5 through 11 before the seniors have their moment. We were delighted when Sam snagged the award for highest g.p.a. for the second year in a row in his class. Micah missed getting his by 1/100th of one point! Ouch. He was so sweet about it, though. He said the little girl that beat him out has diabetes, and he was happy to see her get it, because she had to struggle every day of her life. I wholeheartedly concur!

Then, they presented the academic awards for the seniors. Daniel got the title of Valedictorian! I was so shocked! You could have knocked me off my chair with a feather. My first thought was, "No way!" My second thought was, "Man, if they had just told us this a little sooner, we might have gotten some really neat scholarships!" LOL!

I stayed in shock until it was time for Daniel to take the stage and give his speech. Then, the nervousness of feeling for him---having to give a speech in front of that many people--jarred me back into reality. Daniel is not a natural-born orator. He has really had to work at it. Looking back, I do not think I could have given an address at my high school graduation. I would have fainted from the fear!
I thought that Daniel gave as poignant a speech as I have heard in a long time, and his delivery was his personal best ever, hands down. I was tremendously proud of him, mainly for sticking out this extraordinarily difficult year. There were so many times he wanted to just throw up his hands and quit, but each time, we would discuss it and decide to trudge onward. There is a great deal of personal satisfaction in knowing that you have done something very hard and done it well. He worked like a dog this year, and in the end, it paid off.

We had plans to take the out of town group and go out to dinner, but those plans slowly faded as we all stayed and talked to the crowd quite late! We made about 150 pictures that night, trying to capture every memory we could.

Daniel and I had cut it close getting his "Senior Table" ready that afternoon. We had not wanted to put it up on Thursday, because they were having Kindergarten graduation that night, and we could just see little hands all over the items on the table. So we waited 'til Friday afternoon to lay it out, and we just about did not finish in time to get home and shower and get back to the school.

People lingered a long time Friday night, sharing their "Daniel" stories. Both sets of neighbors on either side of us where we used to live in our old house when Daniel was little were there! Neighbor Bob told us about the day he moved in, and Daniel went over to welcome him to the neighborhood. Daniel was probably 7 or 8 at the time, and after the initial introductions between Bob and Daniel, Daniel asked, pointing to the back porch, "So, is that your wife?" Bob answered that it was, and that her name was Michelle. Daniel then scratched his head and said, "Is she pregnant?" Bob laughed and told him no, that they had just been married two days before! They had Daniel blushing with that story!

Everyone sat around a long time, eating cake and punch (boy, the punch was good!) and reminiscing. Finally, when just about everyone else had cleared out, we decided it was time to call it a night. We took one of Daniel's friends and headed for a M'boro restaurant to give aid to our starving stomachs. I had had 10 chicken nuggets and a piece of cake all day! We pigged out, and then we came back home and opened all the cards and presents that had been left on Dan's senior table. I really wanted to just crawl into bed, but Daniel was so exuberant that I knew that sleep would not be coming for a while!

Needless to say, we were total slugs all day Saturday. My talented husband did fix the washing machine, and we washed just what we would need for Sunday. Otherwise, we did not do anything, and it felt so good! I did manage to transfer my brother's wedding from small video tape to VHS, and I made a copy of our video camera's taping of graduation. We are going to get a full version on DVD, but we taped some stuff too. I am always afraid something will happen to the original, so I backed it up.

Sunday was a glorious day! The weather was beautiful, although it seemed slightly muggy in the morning. We went to worship, and we were delighted and humbled when our elder with throat and mouth cancer came in and sat right up front. He was masked with a hospital mask. A friend at church told me that his mouth area has been severely burnt by the radiation, to the point that he could not even take water in his mouth. Talk about a present day Job! This dear man has suffered. Last weekend, he lost 15 pounds, so they inserted a feeding tube and kept him in the hospital a few days, giving him a round of i.v. antibiotics. He cannot even put a straw in the back of his mouth, it is so excruciating. Yet this man, having endured burning, surgery, i.v.'s, and chemotherapy found the strength to come and worship with his brethren.

We then went to my mother's and dad's, as is the custom on Sunday, when we are not all sick! We decided that we would rather be in the pool than the kitchen, so we ate tuna sandwiches and chips and salad, donned our swimwear, and hit the pool. Now, as I have explained before, we all dress modestly to swim, even as a family. I get made fun of every time, because I look more like Morticia Addams of the Addam's Family than I do a covergirl. Add to that a swim mask, graciously loaned to me by brother Doug, and I am really a sight. (These are pictures that shall not make this blog! ) New sister-in-law Brooke baked our graduate a yummy chocolate cake, which we enjoyed with ice cream by the pool. Brother Doug lamented the fact that we were replacing all the calories that we had just swam off! Oh, well, it was good.

We finished off our Sunday with our second worship service of the day at 6:00, drove back to Mom's and visited with the siblings sans pool. The younguns were sad that they could not get back in, but we promised them plenty of pool time this summer. I am already looking forward to July 4th, when we will have our first 4th in the inground pool, with fireworks being shot less than a block from the high school football field across the street. It is going to be awesome.

Well, that's the update. I am now getting ready for a long, lazy summer with little responsibility other than to sort out my closets and garage and to help with the disposal of the items from my grandmother's house. I don't plan to be really structured for at least 3 months. We have worked hard this year as a family, and it is time for some well-deserved rest. I hope we can even work in a few trips. I would LOVE to see my New Jersey family and the stragglers out in MN and WI. Hopefully, we can do some of that, if Tim's work schedule permits.

Love and best wishes to the sick in the family---Dan, go get a checkup...Bill, we are praying for you! Get well soon. And to little Ben, best wishes with your upcoming surgery! We send wishes for good health to MaiMai and Uncle Tom as well. We love you guys!